The Other Problem with Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court Nomination: Privilege

Brett Kavanaugh’s social class and establishment grooming, including his years at Georgetown Prep, are working to his advantage in the Supreme Court confirmation process.

Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux for The New Yorker

As Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court approaches a dramatic finale, public attention is rightly focussed on Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her at a high-school party. The idea that members of the “law-and-order party” would appoint someone to the highest court in the land while he is facing an accusation of this nature, and before it has been fully investigated, is outrageous. And what’s doubly outrageous is that such special treatment should be afforded to a man whose entire life is testimony to the enduring advantages of America’s social élite.

If the Senate Republicans go ahead and confirm him next week, or shortly thereafter, it will be the second time in eighteen months that a graduate of Georgetown Preparatory School, one of the most exclusive private prep schools in the country, has been elevated to the Supreme Court. In a sprawling country of three hundred and twenty-eight million people that likes to see itself as a land of equal opportunity, this would be a mockery.

It would also confirm that Donald Trump is a fraud. Although he likes to portray himself as an outsider, a disrupter, and a tribune of the forgotten working class, the forty-fifth President is actually a sucker for the establishment. Not only has he nominated Neil Gorsuch (class of 1985) and Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court but he has also appointed a third Georgetown Prep graduate, Jerome Powell (class of 1971), as the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Stop for a moment to consider the sheer numerical effrontery of these selections. The fact that Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Powell are all white and male is almost too obvious to mention. Instead of Kavanaugh, Trump could have picked Amy Coney Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor who now serves on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals; instead of naming Powell to the Fed, he could have re-appointed Janet Yellen, whose performance he had praised. But, of course, he didn’t.

Even if we stipulate that Trump was always going to select three men of a certain age for these high-powered jobs, the choices he made were incredibly élitist. According to the most recent census, there are roughly forty million American men between the ages of forty-five and sixty five. If Trump had been selecting from among them at random, the probability of him picking three graduates of Georgetown Prep would have been virtually zero. But, of course, the system of advancement is anything but random, especially when Trump has a pact with senior Republicans to give them the appointments they want in return for their continued support.

What sort of school is it, this production line for the Republican élite? In addition to being Roman Catholic, it is ancient, expensive, male-only, and highly selective, with a current enrollment of just four hundred and ninety-one pupils. In the Washington, D.C., area, it is known for its twin commitment to academics and sports, its colonial-style redbrick buildings, and its leafy campus, which features a football stadium, a baseball field, a state-of-the-art indoor athletics center, and a mini-golf course. For the 2018-19 school year, tuition fees are $60,280 for boarders and $37,215 for day students.

The school's slogan is “Forming men for others since 1789.” When Kavanaugh was there, from 1979 to 1983, he was just two years ahead of Gorsuch, the darling of the Federalist Society, whom Trump picked to replace Antonin Scalia on the Court. Although there is no evidence that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were close—the former was on the football and basketball teams, the latter a member of the debate team—they were both scions of the Washington governing class that provides the school with many of its pupils.

In keeping with the way the modern American class system works, the common lineage of the Georgetown Prep student runs through the upper professional class rather than the plutocracy. (Barring a few exceptions, such as Trump and Michael Bloomberg, the plutocrats don’t usually get involved in the actual business of governing.) Kavanaugh’s mother was a district-court judge in Montgomery County, Maryland. His father is a retired lawyer, who worked for the United States Chamber of Commerce and served as the president of a trade group, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association. Gorsuch’s mother was the first female administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. (Ronald Reagan appointed her to the job, in 1981.) Powell’s father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather was the dean of the law school at Catholic University of America.

To be sure, all three of these men have shown themselves to be book-smart, hardworking, and successful in their chosen fields. But let nobody suffer under the illusion that their social class and establishment grooming, including their years at Georgetown Prep, didn’t give them a big lift in life—and aren’t still working to their advantage. Practically every time Trump opens his mouth about Kavanaugh, he brings up his blue-blood credentials. And when Kavanaugh’s other Republican supporters don’t entirely discount the accusations against him they tend to dismiss the alleged assault as prep-school high jinks.

The goal here is not to beat up on Georgetown Prep, a school that takes its educational mission seriously and appears to have made a determined effort in recent years to diversify its intake. According to its Web site, sixty-three per cent of the current student body is Caucasian, sixteen per cent is Asian, eleven per cent is African-American, and six per cent is Latino. (The site also says that financial aid is available for applicants “who have a demonstrated financial need.”)

My point is a broader one about social class, privilege, and the intergenerational transmission of high status. It is bad enough in a country with hundreds of law schools that seven of the current Justices graduated from just two of them—Harvard and Yale—and that Kavanaugh would make it eight. (Ruth Bader Ginsburg transferred from Harvard to Columbia University’s law school.) If the United States is going to start reserving positions like Supreme Court Justice and chair of the Federal Reserve for folks who have attended the most exclusive private prep schools and the most prestigious Ivy League graduate schools, it might as well go the full hog and change its name to England. Olde England.